


Straighten Your Crown

by gottabekiddinme



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 10:16:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12505128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gottabekiddinme/pseuds/gottabekiddinme
Summary: Susan's thoughts, post Last Battle.





	Straighten Your Crown

A silly game, she called it.

A children's game.

But now the others are gone and there's no one left to lie to but herself. Susan finds that she no longer has the energy for that.

Would it have been different, she wonders, if she hadn't willfully forgotten? If she hadn't pretended not to ache for Narnia, if she hadn't thrown herself headlong into adulthood leaving such childish things as faith and imagination  _(a faun, a pair of talking beavers, merfolk singing just offshore)_ in the dust.

If she had acknowledged the glimpse of golden fur out of the corner of her eye.

Have they gone there, she wonders. Is Lucy dancing with Dryads again, while Peter and Edmund flirt with everything that moves, each trying to outdo the other in ridiculousness until the whole group is laughing? Are Jill and Eustace introducing the Professor and Polly to the Marsh-Wiggles and their dreary worldview?

Did her parents come along, this time?

Do any of them miss her?

Will she join them one day?

Does she still have that right?

_Once a king or queen in Narnia, always a king or queen._

She sees that glimpse of golden fur again.

_Daughter,_ she remembers. _To the radiant southern sun._

She can be gentle, she thinks. For herself, she can be gentle. For Lucy, she can be valiant, and for Edmund, just. Magnificent? For Peter, she can give it a go.

Maybe she'll even pick up archery again.

What anyone else would call a breeze touches her face. She knows it to be a Lion's breath.

Aslan always remembers those he chooses, even if they forget him for a time.

Once a queen, she thinks.

She lifts her head. Straightens her shoulders. Takes her first steps into a new, lonelier world.

_Always a queen._


End file.
